Saturday, January 26, 2013

The UK recession of 2008-09
was a bit deeper than the 1980s recession but shallower than the 1930s one –
and briefer than either. It was much deeper than the 1970s or 1990s ones: by
historical standards, it was pretty bad.

But what about the recovery
from recession? I find it hard to get too excited about whether the technical
definition of a double-dip or triple-dip recession has been met: the overall
picture is two-and-a-half years (so far) of stagnation. And it’s this that is
so terrible by historical standards.

For about the first five
quarters after the end of the recession – up to autumn 2010 – it looked like a normal
recovery. And then it stalled. We haven’t seen anything like this before.

Sunday, January 06, 2013

You may remember George Osborne explaining his method for identifying his next victims:

Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?

But here’s the thing: in “the dark hours of the early morning”, aren’t most of us still asleep? To get to work for 9, I don’t need to wake up until 7.30 (although I have curtains rather than blinds – I’m not sure how much of a difference that makes).

And this symbolises Osborne’s bigger misjudgement. His decision to uprate most working-age benefits by 1% a year for three years – a real-terms cut – was supposed to show the government on the side of the strivers not the skivers, the workers not the shirkers, the hard-grinders not the closed-blinders.